A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens [A story of the French Revolution]

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and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Parisis not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selectionfrom these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them,or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power(without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself,if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and saysthis--Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years--becauseI am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to halfa dozen old codgers here!"

"How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry."

"Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancingat the House again, "you are to remember, that getting things out ofParis at this present time, no matter what things, is next to animpossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day broughtto us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like towhisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine,every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as hepassed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go,as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everythingis stopped."

"And do you really go to-night?"

"I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing toadmit of delay."

"And do you take no one with you?"

"All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will havenothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry hasbeen my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am usedto him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an Englishbull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybodywho touches his master."

"I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry andyouthfulness."

"I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed thislittle commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retireand live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old."

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneurswarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do toavenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too much theway of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was muchtoo much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terribleRevolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skiesthat had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or omittedto be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretchedmillions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources thatshould have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming,years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Suchvapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for therestoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself,and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be enduredwithout some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And itwas such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion ofblood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, whichhad already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on hisway to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broachingto Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up andexterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without them:and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature tothe abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race.Him, Darnay heard with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnaystood divided between going away that he might hear no more, andremaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, wenton to shape itself out.

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopenedletter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of theperson to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down soclose to Darnay that he saw the direction--the more quickly becauseit was his own right name. The address, turned into English, ran:

"Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evremonde,of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers,London, England."

On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgentand express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this nameshould be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation--keptinviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his ownwife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none.

"No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it,I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where thisgentleman is to be found."

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank,there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry'sdesk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked atit, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; andMonseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignantrefugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparagingto say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was notto be found.

"Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of thepolished Marquis who was murdered," said one. "Happy to say, I neverknew him."

"A craven who abandoned his post," said another--this Monseigneurhad been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in aload of hay--"some years ago."

"Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the directionthrough his glass in passing; "set himself in opposition to the lastMarquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left themto the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope,as he deserves."

"Hey?" cried the blatant Stryver. "Did he though? Is that the sortof fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!"

"Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry tohear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow,who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilrythat ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of theearth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I amsorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'llanswer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination insuch a scoundrel. That's why."

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself,and said: "You may not understand the gentleman."

"I understand how to put YOU in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said BullyStryver, "and I'll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I DON'Tunderstand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You mayalso tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods andposition to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them.But, no, gentlemen," said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping hisfingers, "I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you'llnever find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the merciesof such precious PROTEGES. No, gentlemen; he'll always show 'ema clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away."

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryvershouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbationof his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at thedesk, in the general departure from the Bank.

"Will you take charge of the letter?" said Mr. Lorry. "You knowwhere to deliver it?"

"I do."

"Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have beenaddressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it,and that it has been here some time?"

"I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?"

"From here, at eight."

"I will come back, to see you off."

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men,Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple,opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents:

"Prison of the Abbaye, Paris.

"June 21, 1792."MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS.

"After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of thevillage, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, andbrought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffereda great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razedto the ground.

"The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore theMarquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, andshall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me,treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have actedagainst them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I haveacted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It isin vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrantproperty, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that Ihad collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. Theonly response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where isthat emigrant?

"Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is thatemigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, willhe not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore theMarquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhapsreach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris!

"For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour ofyour noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis,to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you.Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me!

"From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearerand nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis,the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.

"Your afflicted,

"Gabelle."

The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigourous lifeby this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whoseonly crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him soreproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Templeconsidering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby.

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminatedthe bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in hisresentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which hisconscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed touphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his lovefor Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no meansnew to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew thathe ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, andthat he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done.

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of beingalways actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the timewhich had followed on one another so fast, that the events of thisweek annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events ofthe week following made all new again; he knew very well, that to theforce of these circumstances he had yielded:--not without disquiet,but still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That hehad watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shiftedand struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility weretrooping from France by every highway and byway, and their propertywas in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very nameswere blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to anynew authority in France that might impeach him for it.

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so farfrom having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he hadrelinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with nofavour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his ownbread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estateon written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what littlethere was to give--such fuel as the heavy creditors would let themhave in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the samegrip in the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof,for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now.

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make,that he would go to Paris.

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams haddriven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it wasdrawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose beforehis mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily,to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that badaims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments,and that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they,was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assertthe claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled,and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparisonof himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong;upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followedthe sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those ofStryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons.Upon those, had followed Gabelle's letter: the appeal of an innocentprisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name.

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris.

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, untilhe struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. Theintention with which he had done what he had done, even although hehad left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect thatwould be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himselfto assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is sooften the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him,and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guidethis raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild.

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered thatneither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone.Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, alwaysreluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old,should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not inthe balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness ofhis situation was referable to her father, through the painfulanxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, hedid not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too,had had its influence in his course.

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time toreturn to Tellson's and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as hearrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but hemust say nothing of his intention now.

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerrywas booted and equipped.

"I have delivered that letter," said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry."I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer,but perhaps you will take a verbal one?"

"That I will, and readily," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not dangerous."

"Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye."

"What is his name?" said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand.

"Gabelle."

"Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?"

"Simply, `that he has received the letter, and will come.'"

"Any time mentioned?"

"He will start upon his journey to-morrow night."

"Any person mentioned?"

"No."

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks,and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, intothe misty air of Fleet-street. "My love to Lucie, and to littleLucie," said Mr. Lorry at parting, "and take precious care of themtill I come back." Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled,as the carriage rolled away.

That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, andwrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strongobligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length,the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could becomeinvolved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor,confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling onthe same topics with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrotethat he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediatelyafter his arrival.

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the firstreservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matterto preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundlyunsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy andbusy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had beenhalf moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anythingwithout her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly. Early in theevening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretendingthat he would return by-and-bye (an imaginary engagement took him out,and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emergedinto the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all thetides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He lefthis two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hourbefore midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began hisjourney. "For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of thehonour of your noble name!" was the poor prisoner's cry with whichhe strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear onearth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.

The end of the second book.

Book the Third--the Track of a Storm

I

In Secret

The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris fromEngland in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred andninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and badhorses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen andunfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory;but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these.Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state ofreadiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them,inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own,turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them inhold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for thedawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality,Fraternity, or Death.

A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, whenCharles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these countryroads there was no hope of return until he should have been declareda good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on tohis journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a commonbarrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to beanother iron door in the series that was barred between him andEngland. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if hehad been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destinationin a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highwaytwenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in aday, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him andstopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him incharge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when hewent to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still along way from Paris.

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from hisprison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty atthe guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt hisjourney to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as littlesurprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the smallinn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of thenight.

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots inrough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed.

"Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris,under an escort."

"Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I coulddispense with the escort."

"Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with thebutt-end of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!"

"It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary."You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it."

"I have no choice," said Charles Darnay.

"Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap. "As if itwas not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!"

"It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary."Rise and dress yourself, emigrant."

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where otherpatriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by awatch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence hestarted with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning.

The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-colouredcockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one oneither side of him.

The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached tohis bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded roundhis wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain drivingin their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneventown pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state theytraversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital.

They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak,and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedlyclothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatchedtheir ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personaldiscomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerationsof present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronicallydrunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay didnot allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any seriousfears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could haveno reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yetstated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in theAbbaye, that were not yet made.

But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did ateventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could notconceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming.An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard,and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the emigrant!"

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and,resuming it as his safest place, said:

"Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?"

"You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in afurious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and you are acursed aristocrat!"

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider'sbridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said,"Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris."

"Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer."Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this the crowd roared approval.

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to theyard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on,with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could makehis voice heard:

"Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor."

"He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree.His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!"

At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd,which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmasterturned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon hishorse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy doublegates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and thecrowd groaned; but, no more was done.

"What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked thepostmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard.

"Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants."

"When passed?"

"On the fourteenth."

"The day I left England!"

"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will beothers--if there are not already-banishing all emigrants, andcondemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when hesaid your life was not your own."

"But there are no such decrees yet?"

"What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders;"there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What wouldyou have?"

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night,and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among themany wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wildride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep.After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come toa cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but allglittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostlymanner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round ashrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing aLiberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais thatnight to help them out of it and they passed on once more intosolitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet,among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earththat year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, andby the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up acrosstheir way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads.

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrierwas closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.

"Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute-lookingman in authority, who was summoned out by the guard.

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requestedthe speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and Frenchcitizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of thecountry had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for.

"Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of himwhatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?"

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting hiseyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showedsome disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention.

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and wentinto the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outsidethe gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, CharlesDarnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiersand patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that whileingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, andfor similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, evenfor the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley ofmen and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts,was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification was sostrict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some ofthese people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, thatthey lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talkedtogether, or loitered about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade wereuniversal, both among men and women.

When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of thesethings, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority,who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to theescort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested himto dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse,turned and rode away without entering the city.

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of commonwine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep andawake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states betweensleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing andlying about. The light in the guard-house, half derived from thewaning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was ina correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lyingopen on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presidedover these.

"Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slipof paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?"

"This is the man."

"Your age, Evremonde?"

"Thirty-seven."

"Married, Evremonde?"

"Yes."

"Where married?"

"In England."

"Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?"

"In England."

"Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La Force."

"Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and for what offence?"

The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment.

"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here."He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing.

"I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in responseto that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you.I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay.Is not that my right?"

"Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply.The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what hehad written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words"In secret."

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he mustaccompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armedpatriots attended them.

"Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down theguardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter ofDoctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?"

"Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise.

"My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter SaintAntoine. Possibly you have heard of me."

"My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!"

The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge,to say with sudden impatience, "In the name of that sharp femalenewly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?"

"You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is thetruth?"

"Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed,so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render mea little help?"

"None." Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him.

"Will you answer me a single question?"

"Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is."

"In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have somefree communication with the world outside?"

"You will see."

"I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means ofpresenting my case?"

"You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarlyburied in worse prisons, before now."

"But never by me, Citizen Defarge."

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steadyand set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainterhope there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slightdegree. He, therefore, made haste to say:

"It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even betterthan I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicateto Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now inParis, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown intothe prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?"

"I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty isto my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both,against you. I will do nothing for you."

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pridewas touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not butsee how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passingalong the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A fewpassers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him asan aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be goingto prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in workingclothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirtystreet through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool,was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people,of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught fromthis man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the kingwas in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all leftParis. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing.The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him.

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which haddeveloped themselves when he left England, he of course knew now.That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken fasterand faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit tohimself that he might not have made this journey, if he could haveforeseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were notso dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear.Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in itsobscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days andnights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set agreat mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, wasas far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousandyears away. The "sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,"was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name.The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probablyunimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could theyhave a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruelseparation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood,or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly.With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prisoncourtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force.

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defargepresented "The Emigrant Evremonde."

"What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man withthe bloated face.

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation,and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots.

"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife."How many more!"

The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question,merely replied, "One must have patience, my dear!" Three turnkeys whoentered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and oneadded, "For the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like aninappropriate conclusion.

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and witha horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon thenoisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all suchplaces that are ill cared for!

"In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper."As if I was not already full to bursting!"

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnayawaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing toand fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat:in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chiefand his subordinates.

"Come!" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, "come with me, emigrant."

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him bycorridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them,until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded withprisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table,reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men werefor the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up anddown the room.

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime anddisgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowningunreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising toreceive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, andwith all the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners andgloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor andmisery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed tostand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty,the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride,the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, theghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore,all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had diedin coming there.

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and theother gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as toappearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked soextravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and bloomingdaughters who were there--with the apparitions of the coquette,the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred--that theinversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadowspresented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all.Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that hadbrought him to these gloomy shades!

"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said agentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward,"I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and ofcondoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us.May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere,but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?"

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information,in words as suitable as he could find.

"But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with hiseyes, who moved across the room, "that you are not in secret?"

"I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard themsay so."

"Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; severalmembers of our society have been in secret, at first, and it haslasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice,"I grieve to inform the society--in secret."

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed theroom to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and manyvoices--among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women wereconspicuous--gave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned atthe grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed underthe gaoler's hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever.

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When theybad ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour alreadycounted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passedinto a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark.

"Yours," said the gaoler.

"Why am I confined alone?"

"How do I know!"

"I can buy pen, ink, and paper?"

"Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then.At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more."

There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress.As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of thefour walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through themind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, thatthis gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person,as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water.When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way,"Now am I left, as if I were dead." Stopping then, to look down atthe mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought,"And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of thebody after death."

"Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, fivepaces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and fro in hiscell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose likemuffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. "He madeshoes, he made shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted themeasurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him fromthat latter repetition. "The ghosts that vanished when the wicketclosed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressedin black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had alight shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * * Letus ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villageswith the people all awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes,he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half." With such scrapstossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisonerwalked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and theroar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled in likemuffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swellthat rose above them.

II

The Grindstone

Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris,was in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shutoff from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The housebelonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made aflight from the troubles, in his own cook's dress, and got across theborders. A mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was stillin his metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, thepreparation of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied threestrong men besides the cook in question.

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves fromthe sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready andwilling to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one andindivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur'shouse had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, allthings moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierceprecipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month ofSeptember, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession ofMonseigneur's house, and had marked it with the tri-colour, and weredrinking brandy in its state apartments.

A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business inParis, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into theGazette. For, what would staid British responsibility andrespectability have said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard,and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were.Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen onthe ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) atmoney from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come ofthis young Pagan, in Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtainedalcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glasslet into the wall, and also of clerks not at all old, who danced inpublic on the slightest provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's couldget on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the timesheld together, no man had taken fright at them, and drawn out his money.

What money would be drawn out of Tellson's henceforth, and what wouldlie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish inTellson's hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, andwhen they should have violently perished; how many accounts withTellson's never to be balanced in this world, must be carried overinto the next; no man could have said, that night, any more thanMr. Jarvis Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions.He sat by a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful yearwas prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face therewas a deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any objectin the room distortedly reflect--a shade of horror.

He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of whichhe had grown to be a part, lie strong root-ivy. it chanced that theyderived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the mainbuilding, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated aboutthat. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he didhis duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade,was extensive standing--for carriages--where, indeed, some carriagesof Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastenedtwo great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing outin the open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thingwhich appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from someneighbouring smithy, or other workshop. Rising and looking out ofwindow at these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired tohis seat by the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, butthe lattice blind outside it, and he had closed both again, and heshivered through his frame.

From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there camethe usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribablering in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of aterrible nature were going up to Heaven.

"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, "that no one nearand dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have mercyon all who are in danger!"

Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought,"They have come back!" and sat listening. But, there was no loudirruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard thegate clash again, and all was quiet.

The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vagueuneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturallyawaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he gotup to go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his doorsuddenly opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fellback in amazement.

Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, andwith that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified,that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expresslyto give force and power to it in this one passage of her life.

"What is this?" cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused."What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What hasbrought you here? What is it?"

With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness,she panted out in his arms, imploringly, "O my dear friend!My husband!"

"Your husband, Lucie?"

"Charles."

"What of Charles?"

"Here.

"Here, in Paris?"

"Has been here some days--three or four--I don't know how many--I can't collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought himhere unknown to us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison."

The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment,the beg of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet andvoices came pouring into the courtyard.

The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window,and said, with a cool, bold smile:

"My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been aBastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? InFrance--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille,would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me intriumph. My old pain has given me a power that has brought usthrough the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and broughtus here. I knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out ofall danger; I told Lucie so.--What is that noise?" His hand was againupon the window.

"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. "No, Lucie, mydear, nor you!" He got his arm round her, and held her. "Don't be soterrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harmhaving happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his beingin this fatal place. What prison is he in?"

"La Force!"

"La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable inyour life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now,to do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think,or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your partto-night; you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what Imust bid you to do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all.You must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let meput you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father andme alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in theworld you must not delay."

"I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I cando nothing else than this. I know you are true."

The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned thekey; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the windowand partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm,and looked out with him into the courtyard.

Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, ornear enough, to fill the courtyard: not more than forty or fifty inall. The people in possession of the house had let them in at thegate, and they had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it hadevidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient andretired spot.

But, such awful workers, and such awful work!

The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were twomen, whose faces, as their long hair Rapped back when the whirlingsof the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible andcruel than the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarousdisguise. False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them,and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and allawry with howling, and all staring and glaring with beastlyexcitement and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned,their matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flungbackward over their necks, some women held wine to their mouths thatthey might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what withdropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out of thestone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and fire. The eyecould not detect one creature in the group free from the smear of blood.Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpening-stone, were menstripped to the waist, with the stain all over their limbs andbodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; mendevilishly set off with spoils of women's lace and silk and ribbon,with the stain dyeing those trifles through and through. Hatchets,knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all redwith it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to the wrists of thosewho carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress:ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And asthe frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the streamof sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red intheir frenzied eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would havegiven twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun.

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or ofany human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if itwere there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor lookedfor explanation in his friend's ashy face.

"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully roundat the locked room, "murdering the prisoners. If you are sure ofwhat you say; if you really have the power you think you have--as Ibelieve you have--make yourself known to these devils, and get takento La Force. It may be too late, I don't know, but let it not be aminute later!"

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room,and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind.

His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuousconfidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water,carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone.For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, andthe unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him,surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, alllinked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out withcries of--"Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastilleprisoner's kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner infront there! Save the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!" and a thousandanswering shouts.

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed thewindow and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that herfather was assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband.He found her child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred tohim to be surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards,when he sat watching them in such quiet as the night knew.

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet,clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own bed,and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty charge.O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O the long,long night, with no return of her father and no tidings!

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded,and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled andspluttered. "What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted. "Hush! Thesoldiers' swords are sharpened there," said Mr. Lorry. "The placeis national property now, and used as a kind of armoury, my love."

Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful.Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himselffrom the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, sobesmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creepingback to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from thepavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with avacant air. Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfectlight one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to thatgorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to takehis rest on its dainty cushions.

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again,and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstonestood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it thatthe sun had never given, and would never take away.

III

The Shadow

One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind ofMr. Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had noright to imperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrantprisoner under the Bank roof, His own possessions, safety, life,he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment'sdemur; but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to thatbusiness charge he was a strict man of business.

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding outthe wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in referenceto the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city.But, the same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; helived in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influentialthere, and deep in its dangerous workings.

Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delaytending to compromise Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie.She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a shortterm, in that Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was nobusiness objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it wereall well with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hopeto leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, andfound a suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where the closedblinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildingsmarked deserted homes.

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and MissPross: giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he hadhimself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway thatwould bear considerable knocking on the head, and retained to his ownoccupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them,and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him.

It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed.He was again alone in his room of the previous night, consideringwhat to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a fewmoments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observantlook at him, addressed him by his name.

"Your servant," said Mr. Lorry. "Do you know me?"

He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five tofifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change ofemphasis, the words:

"Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons.It is for their safety."

Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry lookeddubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; thesecond woman being The Vengeance.

They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might,ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry,and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport bythe tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the handthat delivered his note--little thinking what it had been doing nearhim in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him.

"DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me."

That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her whoreceived it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed oneof the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful,womanly action, but the hand made no response--dropped cold andheavy, and took to its knitting again.

There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check.She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and,with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge.Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold,impassive stare.

"My dear," said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; "there arefrequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely theywill ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom shehas the power to protect at such times, to the end that she may knowthem--that she may identify them. I believe," said Mr. Lorry,rather halting in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of allthe three impressed itself upon him more and more, "I state the case,Citizen Defarge?"

Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than agruff sound of acquiescence.

"You had better, Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could topropitiate, by tone and manner, "have the dear child here, and ourgood Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knowsno French."

The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more thana match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and,danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to TheVengeance, whom her eyes first encountered, "Well, I am sure, Boldface!I hope YOU are pretty well!" She also bestowed a British cough onMadame Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her.

"Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work forthe first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie asif it were the finger of Fate.

The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fallso threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctivelykneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. Theshadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall,threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child.

"It is enough, my husband," said Madame Defarge. "I have seen them.We may go."

But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visibleand presented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie intosaying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress:

"You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm.You will help me to see him if you can?"

"Your husband is not my business here," returned Madame Defarge,looking down at her with perfect composure. "It is the daughter ofyour father who is my business here."

"For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake!She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We aremore afraid of you than of these others."

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at herhusband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail andlooking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression.

"What is it that your husband says in that little letter?" askedMadame Defarge, with a lowering smile. "Influence; he says somethingtouching influence?"

"That my father," said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from herbreast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it,"has much influence around him."

"Surely it will release him!" said Madame Defarge. "Let it do so."

"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most earnestly, "I implore youto have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess,against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf.O sister-woman, think of me. As a wife and mother!"

Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said,turning to her friend The Vengeance:

"The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were aslittle as this child, and much less, have not been greatlyconsidered? We have known THEIR husbands and fathers laid in prisonand kept from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen oursister-women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty,nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglectof all kinds?"

"We have seen nothing else," returned The Vengeance.

"We have borne this a long time," said Madame Defarge, turning hereyes again upon Lucie. "Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble ofone wife and mother would be much to us now?"

She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed.Defarge went last, and closed the door.

"Courage, my dear Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her."Courage, courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much betterthan it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have athankful heart."

"I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw ashadow on me and on all my hopes."

"Tut, tut!" said Mr. Lorry; "what is this despondency in the bravelittle breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie."

But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself,for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly.

IV

Calm in Storm

Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day ofhis absence. So much of what had happened in that dreadful time ascould be kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed fromher, that not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart,did she know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexesand all ages had been killed by the populace; that four days andnights had been darkened by this deed of horror; and that the airaround her had been tainted by the slain. She only knew that therehad been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prisoners hadbeen in danger, and that some had been dragged out by the crowd andmurdered.

To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecyon which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken himthrough a scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in theprison he had found a self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before whichthe prisoners were brought singly, and by which they were rapidlyordered to be put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in afew cases) to be sent back to their cells. That, presented by hisconductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name andprofession as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccusedprisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting injudgment had risen and identified him, and that this man was Defarge.

That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table,that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had pleadedhard to the Tribunal--of whom some members were asleep and some awake,some dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some not--forhis life and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavishedon himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it hadbeen accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawlessCourt, and examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at oncereleased, when the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check(not intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secretconference. That, the man sitting as President had then informedDoctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should,for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately,on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the prisonagain; but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded forpermission to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was,through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whosemurderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings,that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall ofBlood until the danger was over.

The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleepby intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisonerswho were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocityagainst those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, hesaid, who had been discharged into the street free, but at whom amistaken savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besoughtto go to him and dress the wound, the Doctor had passed out at thesame gate, and had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans,who were seated on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsistencyas monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped thehealer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest solicitude--had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spot--had then caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery sodreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, andswooned away in the midst of it.

As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the faceof his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose withinhim that such dread experiences would revive the old danger.

But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect: he had neverat all known him in his present character. For the first time theDoctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For thefirst time he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged theiron which could break the prison door of his daughter's husband, anddeliver him. "It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was notmere waste and ruin. As my beloved child was helpful in restoring meto myself, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part ofherself to her; by the aid of Heaven I will do it!" Thus, DoctorManette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resoluteface, the calm strong look and bearing of the man whose life alwaysseemed to him to have been stopped, like a clock, for so many years,and then set going again with an energy which had lain dormant duringthe cessation of its usefulness, he believed.

Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with,would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kepthimself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with alldegrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, heused his personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspectingphysician of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could nowassure Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but wasmixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly,and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimesher husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor'shand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the manywild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointedat emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanentconnections abroad.

This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doubt; still,the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it.Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one;but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to thattime, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of hisdaughter and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation,and weakness. Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to beinvested through that old trial with forces to which they both lookedfor Charles's ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exaltedby the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required themas the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The preceding relativepositions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as theliveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he couldhave had no pride but in rendering some service to her who hadrendered so much to him. "All curious to see," thought Mr. Lorry,in his amiably shrewd way, "but all natural and right; so, take thelead, my dear friend, and keep it; it couldn't be in better hands."

But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to getCharles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial,the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him.The new era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; theRepublic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared forvictory or death against the world in arms; the black flag wavednight and day from the great towers of Notre Dame; three hundredthousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rosefrom all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon's teeth hadbeen sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain,on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of theSouth and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in thevineyards and the olive-grounds and among the cropped grass and thestubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers,and in the sand of the sea-shore. What private solicitude could rearitself against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty--the delugerising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows ofHeaven shut, not opened!

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest,no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularlyas when time was young, and the evening and morning were the firstday, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in theraging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient.Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executionershowed the people the head of the king--and now, it seemed almost inthe same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight wearymonths of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it grey.

And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains inall such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast.A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousandrevolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected,which struck away all security for liberty or life, and deliveredover any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisonsgorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain nohearing; these things became the established order and nature ofappointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they weremany weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as ifit had been before the general gaze from the foundations of theworld--the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine.

It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure forheadache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, itimparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the NationalRazor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked throughthe little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of theregeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models ofit were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and itwas bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied.

It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it mostpolluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like atoy-puzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when theoccasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful,abolished the beautiful and good. Twenty-two friends of high publicmark, twenty-one living and one dead, it had lopped the heads off,in one morning, in as many minutes. The name of the strong man ofOld Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it;but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, andtore away the gates of God's own Temple every day.

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctorwalked with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiouslypersistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie'shusband at last. Yet the current of the time swept by, so strong anddeep, and carried the time away so fiercely, that Charles had lain inprison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus steady andconfident. So much more wicked and distracted had the Revolutiongrown in that December month, that the rivers of the South wereencumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night, andprisoners were shot in lines and squares under the southern wintry sun.Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head.No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in astranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital andprison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was aman apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and thestory of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He wasnot suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeedbeen recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spiritmoving among mortals.

V

The Wood-Sawyer

One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was neversure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off herhusband's head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, thetumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls;bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwartmen and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for LaGuillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of theloathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slakeher devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--thelast, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!

If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of thetime, had stunned the Doctor's daughter into awaiting the result inidle despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many.But, from the hour when she had taken the white head to her freshyoung bosom in the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to herduties. She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all thequietly loyal and good will always be.

As soon as they were established in their new residence, and herfather had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged thelittle household as exactly as if her husband had been there.Everything had its appointed place and its appointed time. LittleLucie she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united intheir English home. The slight devices with which she cheatedherself into the show of a belief that they would soon be reunited--the little preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside ofhis chair and his books--these, and the solemn prayer at night forone dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy souls in prisonand the shadow of death--were almost the only outspoken reliefs ofher heavy mind.

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses,akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neatand as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days.She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant,not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty andcomely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burstinto the grief she had repressed all day, and would say that her solereliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered:"Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that Ican save him, Lucie."

They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks,when her father said to her, on coming home one evening:

"My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charlescan sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can getto it--which depends on many uncertainties and incidents--he mightsee you in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain placethat I can show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poorchild, and even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make asign of recognition."

"O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day."

From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours.As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turnedresignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for her childto be with her, they went together; at other times she was alone;but, she never missed a single day.

It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street.The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the onlyhouse at that end; all else was wall. On the third day of her beingthere, he noticed her.

"Good day, citizeness."

"Good day, citizen."

This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had beenestablished voluntarily some time ago, among the more thoroughpatriots; but, was now law for everybody.

"Walking here again, citizeness?"

"You see me, citizen!"

The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture(he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison,pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face torepresent bars, peeped through them jocosely.

"But it's not my business," said he. And went on sawing his wood.

Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment sheappeared.

"I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again!Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off HER head comes! Now, a child.Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off ITS head comes. All the family!"

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but itwas impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and notbe in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she alwaysspoke to him first, and often gave him drink-money, which he readilyreceived.

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quiteforgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in liftingher heart up to her husband, she would come to herself to find himlooking at her, with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in itswork. "But it's not my business!" he would generally say at thosetimes, and would briskly fall to his sawing again.

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter windsof spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, andagain in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours ofevery day at this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed theprison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) itmight be once in five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running:it might be, not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enoughthat he could and did see her when the chances served, and on thatpossibility she would have waited out the day, seven days a week.

These occupations brought her round to the December month, whereinher father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On alightly-snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was aday of some wild rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses,as she came along, decorated with little pikes, and with little redcaps stuck upon them; also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with thestandard inscription (tricoloured letters were the favourite),Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!

The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its wholesurface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had gotsomebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death inwith most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he displayedpike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he hadstationed his saw inscribed as his "Little Sainte Guillotine"--for the great sharp female was by that time popularly canonised.His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie,and left her quite alone.

But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movementand a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A momentafterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner bythe prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand inhand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundredpeople, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There wasno other music than their own singing. They danced to the popularRevolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing ofteeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women dancedtogether, men danced together, as hazard had brought them together.At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and coarsewoollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to danceabout Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone ravingmad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at oneanother's hands, clutched at one another's heads, spun round alone,caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of themdropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, andall spun round together: then the ring broke, and in separate ringsof two and four they turned and turned until they all stopped atonce, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed thespin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped again,paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width ofthe public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands highup, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terribleas this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sport--a something,once innocent, delivered over to all devilry--a healthy pastimechanged into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses,and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it theuglier, showing how warped and perverted all things good by naturewere become. The maidenly bosom bared to this, the prettyalmost-child's head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing inthis slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time.

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened andbewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer's house, the featherysnow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been.

"O my father!" for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyesshe had momentarily darkened with her hand; "such a cruel, bad sight."

"I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don't befrightened! Not one of them would harm you."

"I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of myhusband, and the mercies of these people--"

"We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbingto the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see.You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof."

"I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!"

"You cannot see him, my poor dear?"

"No, father," said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand,"no."

A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. "I salute you, citizeness,"from the Doctor. "I salute you, citizen." This in passing. Nothingmore. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road.

"Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulnessand courage, for his sake. That was well done;" they had left the spot;"it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for to-morrow."

"For to-morrow!"

"There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there areprecautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actuallysummoned before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet,but I know that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, andremoved to the Conciergerie; I have timely information.You are not afraid?"

She could scarcely answer, "I trust in you."

"Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; heshall be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed himwith every protection. I must see Lorry."

He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing.They both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. Threetumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the hushing snow.

"I must see Lorry," the Doctor repeated, turning her another way.

The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it.He and his books were in frequent requisition as to propertyconfiscated and made national. What he could save for the owners, hesaved. No better man living to hold fast by what Tellson's had inkeeping, and to hold his peace.

A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denotedthe approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived atthe Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogetherblighted and deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court,ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and Indivisible.Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!

Who could that be with Mr. Lorry--the owner of the riding-coat uponthe chair--who must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he comeout, agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? Towhom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising hisvoice and turning his head towards the door of the room from which hehad issued, he said: "Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned forto-morrow?"

VI

Triumph

The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determinedJury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and wereread out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners.The standard gaoler-joke was, "Come out and listen to the Evening Paper,you inside there!"

"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!"

So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force.

When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reservedfor those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. CharlesEvremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seenhundreds pass away so.

His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced overthem to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went throughthe list, making a similar short pause at each name. There weretwenty-three names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of theprisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and twohad already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, inthe vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners onthe night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in themassacre; every human creature he had since cared for and parted with,had died on the scaffold.

There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the partingwas soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society ofLa Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeitsand a little concert, for that evening. They crowded to the gratesand shed tears there; but, twenty places in the projectedentertainments had to be refilled, and the time was, at best, shortto the lock-up hour, when the common rooms and corridors would bedelivered over to the great dogs who kept watch there through thenight. The prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling; theirways arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly, though witha subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, known,without doubt, to have led some persons to brave the guillotineunnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but awild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons ofpestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have likewonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.

The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in itsvermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisonerswere put to the bar before Charles Darnay's name was called. All thefifteen were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hourand a half.

"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay," was at length arraigned.

His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough redcap and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing.Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thoughtthat the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons weretrying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of acity, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were thedirecting spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding,disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without acheck. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways; ofthe women, some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as theylooked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a sparepiece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in a frontrow, by the side of a man whom he had never seen since his arrival atthe Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticedthat she once or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed tobe his wife; but, what he most noticed in the two figures was, thatalthough they were posted as close to himself as they could be, theynever looked towards him. They seemed to be waiting for somethingwith a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but atnothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his usualquiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorrywere the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore theirusual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the Carmagnole.

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the publicprosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic,under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death.It was nothing that the decree bore date since his return to France.There he was, and there was the decree; he had been taken in France,and his head was demanded.

"Take off his head!" cried the audience. "An enemy to the Republic!"

The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked theprisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in England?

Undoubtedly it was.

Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself?

Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law.

Why not? the President desired to know.

Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distastefulto him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left hiscountry--he submitted before the word emigrant in the presentacceptation by the Tribunal was in use--to live by his own industryin England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people ofFrance.

What proof had he of this?

He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, andAlexandre Manette.